


All He Could Do

by thosedots



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28401663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thosedots/pseuds/thosedots
Summary: Charlie thinks about the waitress and wonders where he’s gone wrong all these years. Set around season 8.
Kudos: 9





	All He Could Do

**Author's Note:**

> I can have a little Charlie Kelly woobification. As a treat.

He doesn’t understand. He never has.

It’s late. Frank’s out again. He does this sometimes, is out all night, gone for days, once for weeks, Charlie doesn’t worry about it anymore. Light from the street lamps outside is pouring in through the filthy window. He’s thinking about the waitress. Again. 

It’s been about eight years or so. He remembers her a bit from high school, but had forgotten about her in the intervening years between then and him walking into that coffee shop and seeing her again. Something had awoken in him that day. Or maybe broken. It was hard to tell at that point.

The gang made fun of him, made fun of her, called her ugly and annoying and called him creepy and pathetic and desperate. They didn’t understand. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, he could see that, why couldn’t anyone else? And why couldn’t she see how much he loved her? It was nights like these where he’d fall into despair, pacing around the room, ripping at his hair, jotting down notes as best he could (he understood them, that’s all that mattered) in the notebook he stored next to his dream journal, absolutely sure there was a way he could finally make her see him for who he was. To finally get her to love him. He would get furious thinking of how Frank, Dennis, Brad Fisher - they he all treated her like trash. She deserved better. She deserved someone like him. 

He had been so sure his play would work. That was four years ago, he had poured his whole heart and soul into it, tried to get his friends to take it seriously. And for what. They didn’t. The audience laughed. And the waitress still said no. That had been hard to get over. He didn’t know what he had done wrong. He knew she thought he was a freak, disgusting, horrible, untouchable. No matter what anyone said, he wasn’t stupid. He just wanted to explain himself to her. He thought if she finally understood him, she could see through the oddness and the filth and see him the same way he saw her. He wasn’t good with words, never had been. But music was different. He’d worked on that musical for over a year, had gone home and started writing it the day he and Dennis did their ill-received original Dayman performance. He was good with music, with theater. He thought that would be the way to finally get through to her. After it hadn’t worked, he didn’t know what to do anymore. He gave up for awhile. Then he picked up with his new routine, keeping track of her, making sure she was okay and no one was hurting her. Protecting her from danger. He worried a lot about all the possible treacherous situations she might find herself in, all the people who might be out to get her. Beautiful people had to worry about that kind of thing, he knew.

He had tried making her jealous once, that time with Ruby Taft. He wasn’t thrilled about that, but it seemed like the sort of thing Dennis would do, and Dennis seemed to be able to get any woman he wanted, he had a system, that he system worked, the waitress herself was crazy about him. And yet he failed to win her over, yet again. 

Charlie just wanted the waitress to love him. If she loved him everything else in his life would be okay, everything he couldn’t accept admit even to himself would wash away. And his dreams had been getting bad again. So here he was, spending another lonely, sleepless night in his apartment, thinking there must be a tactic he hasn’t tried. A solution that he’d missed this whole time. He wasn’t stupid No matter what anyone said, he wasn’t stupid. So why couldn’t he figure this out? He didn’t understand.

He’d never understood. 

Of course the waitress couldn’t understand him. He barely understood himself. Once in awhile, he’d get a flash of insight into himself, that would be so painful and horrible he had to shove it down immediately, with glue or booze or gasoline. But if the waitress loved him, if she went with him to the marriage store and signed the right papers and they moved in together and he woke up next to her every day he wouldn’t need to do that anymore. He was sure of that, somehow. 

By the time he finally fell asleep, still alone, wedged into the crevice as he always did when things got bad, the sun was starting to rise. And when he got up the following afternoon, to furious texts from the gang - “where r u???” “Have u heard from frank?” he ignored them, set off to the waitress’s apartment building, where he’d wait across the street just waiting to see her, check in on her, make sure nothing terrible had happened, knowing she’d get upset or maybe even call the cops, as she’d been threatening to do, but knowing in his heart that he was helping her.

It was all he could do.


End file.
